Heat Stippling the Goblin Solo

Inspired by a video on how to heat stipple plastic grips (see embedded video below) but hesitant to try out the technique on an expensive marker, I figured it would be fun to heat stipple my new Goblin Solo.

I started off by pencilling in the perimeter of any area that my fingers touched the Solo when I held it.

Then, using a 60W varying voltage soldering iron set to around 16W (I think this may have been a bit too hot, as there are some black marks where the plastic burned a bit), I practiced the stippling technique on a broken fast mag that I had lying around. 

Once I had gotten the knack of it, I stippled the line I had drawn with a pencil earlier on the Goblin.

After this point I just filled in the area outlined. The entire process took about half an hour when I got down to business.

I'm very happy with the result, and the grip provided is superb.

One thing I should mention is make sure you do not stipple over the median between the clamshell halves, I only realized this after I had stippled the outside line (as seen above).

As you can see, the stippled portion matches up with where my fingers go perfectly. This is my first time doing this, and first time working with a soldering iron. That just goes to show how easy this process is. If you take your time and think it through before you start, you'll end up with a great finished product.